Having seen the Swedish movie Thriller
- En Grym Film/Thriller
- A Cruel Picture/They
Called her One Eye (1974), it's hard to not be impressed by the
memorable performance by the film's lead, Christina Lindberg as the mute,
eye-patched girl with a vengeance. Surprisingly though, this was her last
lead in a feature film, and soon afterwards she gave up filming all
together (with the occasional exception). But still, by 1974, this
beautifully shaped doe-eyed girl who always seemed to have an aura of
infinite sadness around her, had already had a short but interesting
career in acting behind her ...

Born 1950 in Göteburg, Sweden,
Christina Lindberg's first claim to fame was not as an actress at all, but
as a model, more specifically a nude model. Especially a nude picture on
the cover of the magazine FIB Aktuellt granted her instant
notoriety, and so it came as little surprise that she soon soon appeared
nude in more men's magazines like Playboy, Penthouse and Lui
as well as erotic films.

Christina Lindberg made her acting
debut in a film called Maid in Sweden (directed by Dan Wolman) - a
film shot in Sweden with a Swedish cast by an American crew - in 1969,
playing a 16 year old girl from the country who visits her sister in the
city - and has her sexual awakening.

Maid in Sweden
however was not released until 1971, so the first film that presented
Lindberg to the paying public was Rötmanad/Dog
Days by Jan Halldoff in 1970, a time when erotic cinema was still relatively
new, fresh and exciting, and the widespread advent of hardcore was still a
few years away. Dog Days, while definitely softcore, did its bit in
pushing the envelope of what was acceptable, and it ultimately became a
financial success in Sweden. And even though Lindberg had
only a supporting role, the film widened her popularity, and more (erotic)
features starring her soon followed.

Exponerad/Exposed/The
Depraved/Diary of a Rape (1971, Gustav Wiklund) again features
Christina Lindberg in the lead in a sex film about a woman (Lindberg) torn
between her young nice guy boyfriend and an older man, a sadistic
sociopath, whom she feels herself strangely drawn to - though much of the
story only happens in Lindberg's character's mind (but we still get to see
it of course).

Exponerad
had a much-hyped premiere in Cannes where it became an instant
(calculated) scandal - and it helped in making Christina Lindberg into an
international erotic star ...

It was possibly thanks to Exponerad
that Christina Lindberg caught the eye of famous American
sexploitation director Joe Sarno. In the late 1960's/early 70's, Sarno had
relocated his operations to Sweden to make more daring pictures than he
could in the USA at that time, and he was always on the look-out for girls
who had no inhibitions to appear in front of the camera in the nude, and
who had at least basic acting skills - and Christina Lindberg definitely fitted both bills.

Lindberg would star in
2 films for Sarno in 1972, and while in the first, Every
Afternoon/Swedish
Wildcats, one of Sarno's lesser films, she would have a supporting role as one of a stable of
hookers who frequently appear all naked in animal makeup and body painting, the second, Young Playthings, a bizarre tale about a
toymaker and her female toys, would see her in the a lead role.

With
her fame having transcended the
borders of Sweden, Christina then went on a (two-stop-)world tour to make
films elsewhere:

First off was Germany, where in the wake of the
successful Schulmädchen-Report-/Schoolgirl Report-films
a sex-film industry had developed that would greet everyone who looked
young enough (which Lindberg did, despite being 22 she still looked like
being in her teens) and would drop their textiles with open arms.

The Pornstar Travels
around Japan by contrast is a simplistic art- and heartless story
about Lindberg coming to Japan and being kidnapped and raped upon her
arrival ... and ultimately falling in love with her kidnapper and rapist.
Interestingly, this film cannot decide whether or not it wants to be a
comedy (!) ...

Need
I say it that both Lindberg and Ike have nude scenes in this one ?

Not so in Anita
- Ur en Tonarsflickas Dagbok/Anita: Swedish Nymphet
(1973, Torgny Wickman), in
which she played the title role, a 16 year old girl (despite being 23, she
could still pull off a sweet sixteen) who's, well, shagging around until
she a) has her first true orgasm, and b) finds her true love (Stellan
Skarsgard).

By
1974 however, Lindberg had grown tired of continuously undressing in front
of the camera and was looking for roles that required more acting and less
nudity.

The 1974 release Thriller
- En Grym Film/Thriller
- A Cruel Picture/They
Called her One Eye by Bo A.Vibenius - a film that was allegedly
shot back in 1972 but did not get released because of its controversial
plot until now - ably showed that Lindberg's talents went further than
just taking her cloths off, her role in Thriller
required a lot
of acting, which Lindberg pulled off admirably, especially considering she
played a one-eyed mute ... but the film also
required a lot of nudity. The film (in its uncut form) even
featured a few hardcore scenes, but in those, Lindberg - never one for
hardcore - was replaced by another actress. She even opposed these scenes,
but there was little she could do.

As a whole, Thriller
is an incredibly ruthless film about a mute one-eyed girl (Christina
Lindberg) drugged into submission by a pimp and made into a prostitute
with no will of her own - or so the pimp thinks,as in her spare time the
girl learns all sorts of self defense and race-driving, and
eventually, she gets back at her tormentors, pimps and johns alike. The
film is violent and intense, made all the more so by Christina Lindbergs
superb acting.

Thriller
was followed by a supporting role in the rather disappointing Sängkamrater/Wide Open
(1974, Gustav Wiklund), in which she had little more to do than get naked
every now and again.

After that movie, Christina Lindberg's career did rather quickly come to an end,
with her being only 24 and looking even younger than that. About the wh, one can only
speculate, but it might primarily have to do with changes in the sex-film
business: Hardcore was hitting big time, and like many other softcore
actresses, Lindberg did not mind disrobing in front of the camera but she
did have her - understandable - reservations against shagging just anyone
on film. And Lindberg's appeal with mainstream (as in non-erotic film) audiences was
(presumably)
too small (yet) to continue her career away from erotica.

Christina
Lindberg did make a few more small appearances in films over the years,
including Attentatet/Outrage
(1980, Thomas Johansson) and Sverige at Svenskarna/The Battle of Sweden
(1980, Per Oscarsson)
and she even paid homage to her own role in Thriller
in the 2000 parody-movie Sex,
Lögner & Videovald/Sex, Lies
and Videoviolence by Richard Holm, but by and large, she stayed out of
the business and had embarked on a second career: Journalism. In the
second half of the 1970's, with her film career rapidly cooling off,
Christina Lindberg has started studying journalism and besides writing
articles for men's magazines, she had started working for her fiancé's aviation
magazine Flygrevyn, which she took over after his death in 2004.

One curious item though I have kept
for the end of this article: Christina's Svampskola (1993), a
self-directedshort
film about mushrooms in Sweden, which she not only hosts but has also
written and co-directed and co-produced with Bo Sehlberg.

And
who can be both the ruthless one-eyed avenging angel she was in Thriller
and a host of a mushroom show in one lifetime deserves at least my respect
...